The present invention relates to devices used in endoscopic surgery and, more particularly, to a system for transferring power and data for a camera used in endoscopic surgery.
The connector used between an endoscopic camera head and a corresponding camera control unit should be: waterproof, able to survive numerous autoclave sterilization cycles, able to survive numerous Sterrad sterilization cycles, reliable and easy to connect and disconnect. The connector should also allow for multiple high rate channels of data transmission and provide for the transmission of several watts of DC power. Traditional connector gold contact designs are the industry standard, but degrade with repeated sterilization processing that contaminates and corrodes the contact surfaces.
There are some known methods for sending digital data through contactless connectors as well as techniques for wireless DC power transfer. However, prior art methods suffer from at least one of the following problems: they do not address the need for high safety isolation, multiple parallel high rate data channels or sealed/autoclave sterilization compatibility.
Thus, there is a need for an improved camera connector that remedies the shortcomings of the prior art.